Lincoln the Politician: How to Play the Game

Lincoln was a man of great compassion, but that isn’t to say he couldn’t be tough. When Kansas Senator Pomeroy, an early recipient of Lincoln’s largesse, was shown, to Lincoln’s satisfaction, to have contributed too energetically to the Chase-for-President effort [Salmon Chase, Lincoln’s brilliant Secretary of the Treasury, wanted very much to be president himself in 1864, but got other Republican figures outside the Cabinet to head up his effort], Lincoln ended the Kansan’s access to the federal gravy train.

In short, it appeared Lincoln acted on the unspoken assumption that, in politics, you either jump to the leader’s tune or go to the wall.